Two Unrelated Thoughts from Dinner Out Tonight....

I'll go with the meanest one first, so maybe by the time you finish reading this blog you will have forgotten that you decided never again to read anything written by such a shrew as I. Me. Whatever.

Is it possible for a waitress to be TOO nice?

I don't even mean the hovering, interrupting every attempt at conversation. Or worse, as we've had happen on a few occasions, a waiter or waitress SITS DOWN IN THE BOOTH with us to take our order.

Uh.....scuse me? We came for dinner, not to bond.

Our waitress tonight was probably in her late teens or early twenties, although I'm a terrible judge of ages, especially since I turned FIFTY just two weeks ago.

She was so darn nice that she made me uncomfortable. Too perky. The smile just a little too bright. "How are those salads tasting?" Honey, it's hard to mess up a salad.

This makes me feel mean just to type it. I didn't glare at her or anything, so it's just my thoughts that I'm questioning.

This young lady was the perfect waitress. She took our orders, brought everything exactly as we asked for it, and she did it all in a timely manner. Kind of like that puppy that keeps licking your toes and you don't like having your toes licked, but you can't bring yourself to kick the puppy anyway. (NOT referring to Chico, I promise.)

I tipped her almost 25%. I think I was feeling guilty about being irritated by her niceness, and she was good at her job after all.

Issue number two from dinner tonight:

Over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about confusing labels on public restroom doors. Apparently I was scraping the bottom of the proverbial drivel barrel. If you don't want to go back and read the whole post (and who could blame you, really?), it was about how some establishments get all cute with the labels on the restroom doors, and sometimes it's hard to know which one you really are.

The restaurant where we ate tonight apparently had a dilemma when it came to putting cute labels on their restroom doors. In keeping with the whole Western theme, they put "Bulls" on the men's room door. Obviously they couldn't put "Cows" on the door to the women's room. I'm guessing even "Heifers" would have been offensive. Okay, I don't have to guess. I would have been offended.

I'm not sure their solution, however, was much better.

Men's room door: "Bulls"

Women's room door: "Lambs"

Bulls and Lambs? BULLS AND LAMBS?

I can't even make that make sense.

What If I Don't Know?..........

I wish some places wouldn't be so cutesy with the labels on their restroom doors. Really, people, by the time I have to go, I really don't have time to figure out which one I am. "Men" and "Women" I understand. Although when I was first learning to read, I thought "Women" meant "Whoa Men," as in "Men don't come in here....whoa." That made a lot more sense to me than the way the word is actually pronounced.

We went to our favorite Aussie-themed restaurant tonight because Hubby needed his fix. Their restroom doors are labeled "Sheilas" and "Blokes." What if I had NEVER seen the Crocadile Dundee movie and didn't know if I were a sheila or a bloke? They do have the little diagram on the door as well, but it always takes me a minute to figure out if the little stick figure is wearing a dress or not. And besides, who wears dresses anymore?

Some of them are more obvious, and I don't have as much trouble with them. In an establishment where the doors were labeled "Hens" and "Roosters" once, I didn't hesitate. That one made sense.

In another "classy" place, however, I had to think about it for a minute. I didn't know for sure if I were a "Pointer" or a "Setter." Don't laugh at me! I realized immediately that I didn't have anything with which to point, but my literal nature gave me pause. I reasoned that both setters AND pointers can be EITHER male OR female, and I confused myself. Finally I peeked in both doors and picked the one that smelled the best. And where the seat wasn't up.

Perhaps the most cruel bathroom door trick ever, though, wasn't the label itself so much as it was the placement. I had drunk a couple of beers (one is usually my limit) and went to the ladies' room. The door was clearly labeled "Ladies" or "Women," whichever was appropriate. On the way OUT, however, the INSIDE of the door had a sign on it that said "Men." It was just enough to make me stop in horror and wonder if I had used the wrong restroom. Can you imagine what it must have done to a REAL drunk? I noticed the last time I was there it was no longer labeled that way. I hope I didn't imagine the whole thing. I swear it was only two beers.....

Foolishly, I just turned to Hubby for assistance on this blog topic. I asked if he had any other examples of restroom door labeling that I could include.

He said "Sticks" and "Splits."

I think he made that up.